‘A Decision That Will Cause a Lot of Pain’: Legal Analyst Says ‘Severe’ Fraud Ruling is Devastating For Trump
MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann predicted that the fraud ruling against former President Donald Trump will be devastating for the GOP frontrunner’s family business.
On Friday, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered the former president to pay $354 million in damages after ruling the Trump Organization committed widespread fraud. Moreover, additional fines were also levied against Trump’s sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump who each must pay $4 million in damages.
The ruling also prevents Trump from serving as a corporate officer or a director of a company in New York for three years, while his two sons received a two-year ban.
Weissmann reacted to the news during a panel discussion on MSNBC where he stated that Trump’s inability to seek a loan from a bank chartered in New York will “cause a lot of pain.”
Notably, for three years, Donald Trump and a whole variety of entities cannot seek to have a loan from any company, that is chartered in New York. To be clear, that is licensed to do business here. That is many, many banks. They don’t have to be physically located here as long as they’re licensed to do business here. And the judge has barred the obtaining of loans from them. So that puts a real damper on the way in which Donald Trump can seek to keep his companies afloat because he cannot for three years see that as a recourse.
So I think, as Yasmin was saying, one of the ways out is, to have a sale of assets, as a way to, to get this money or to at least be able to put up the money so that he can take an appeal. So this is really, a decision that will cause a lot of pain, not just because of the number, but because of the way in which the company is restricted going forward, its limited ability to, act in New York, and to basically have the lifeblood of a company which is taking out loans, since that is really necessary to so many businesses. So a very, very severe decision today from Judge Engoron.
Watch the clip above via MSNBC.
